


The Weight of Invincibility

by dreyrugr



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 2009 Avengers Like It's 2016, Adoption, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Enhanced Peter, Enhanced Peter Parker, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Kid Peter Parker, M/M, MCU Mixed Slightly with 616, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overprotective Bucky Barnes, Protective Avengers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Screwed up timelines, Self-Appointed Bodyguard James Barnes, Sick Tony Stark, Team as Family, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric, dad tony, so many feels, son peter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-23 08:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23241784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreyrugr/pseuds/dreyrugr
Summary: He jerks his chin at the kid, keeping a solid five feet between them. “What’s with the kid?”“I’m glad you asked, Mister Stark.” He comes behind the kid, settling both of his hands on each of those small shoulders. “Meet Peter Parker, your new ward for the foreseeable future.”...Afghanistan has become more than just a scar across Tony's chest: It has torn the Avengers apart, leaving most of its members to realize their mistreatment of their consultant has cost them more than just Bucky leaving the group. The Avengers eventually reband to protect orphaned Peter Parker―but will it be enough to mend what was broken?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 173
Kudos: 676





	1. Siberia ― December 17, 1991

“Mission report,” the Handler demands. The words are familiar, a balm to the staccato of his heart hammering against his chest. “December sixteen, nineteen-ninety-one.”

They’re not enough.

“That man…” _Sergeant Barnes,_ he’d slurred. _Howard,_ the woman had called. “He knew me.”

The Handler grips him by the neck, his appendages digging into his arteries. It does nothing to restrict the blood flow, not the way the Soldier knows it should. The grip is not hard enough to harm someone like him, someone like the other Winter Soldiers. “I _said,”_ the man warns as his hand tightens further, almost but not quite enough to cause permanent damage, “mission report, December sixteen―”

The pounding of his heart is a drum in his ears, louder than the Words. Louder than the Ice.

It’s an unconscious thought, an instinct.

He grips the Handler by the throat. He hears more than feels the shattering of vertebrae, the splinters of bone like jagged cuts of glass under the flesh of skin.

The Handler drops like a weighted sac.

“He knew me,” he accuses at the lifeless body.


	2. The Beginning

_Ding-dong._

The TV screen lights up with the surveillance camera footage of the front door. It’s a small child, probably no older than five. There are dried tear tracks on the kid’s pudgy, toddler cheeks and what looks like a small gash that has already coagulated on the side of his forehead, close to the temple. Other than that, aside from the way the kid is hunkered down within an oversized, purple hoodie, the kid looks fine, physically.

And just behind the kid stands the imposing figure of Nick Fury.

“Motherf―is he being serious right now? J, connect me to the intercom.”

“Done, Sir.”

“Closest daycare center is approximately seven point five miles from here. Did you get lost on the way?”

Nick Fury’s unimpressed eye settles point-centre into the camera. “I’m not asking for permission.”

“And this is me denying said lack of permission. Answer is no, Nicky. This isn’t a place for toddlers to hang around.”

The kid’s balefully doe large eyes look up, lower lip protruding into a small pout. “M’not a _baby._ I’m _seven.”_

“Yeah, I don’t give a shit, kid. Seven or three is all the same to me. Again, the answer is _no,_ Fury.”

Fury spares one last glare at the camera before striding forward, ushering the kid along with a hand on his shoulder.

“Sir, my protocols are being overwritten.”

Tony rolls his gaze skyward. “Yeah, whatever, let them in.” His knees creak as he rises from his swivel chair. He grunts. “Jesus, I’m getting too old for this,” he mutters under his breath, slowly making his way over to the stairs.

He takes them up two at a time. He rounds the newest abstract sculpture Pepper had put into place a couple of weeks ago and is greeted by the sight of a definitely undersized seven-year-old looking around with lost wonder in his eyes and with the tall, dark, and brooding figure of Fury waiting for his arrival with his hands clasped behind his back.

Fury stares at him for a beat. “Should you be exerting yourself like that?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “None of your business. Also, know what is none of _my_ business?” He twirls a finger in the air. “All of this.” He jerks his chin at the kid, keeping a solid five feet between them. “What’s with the kid?”

“I’m glad you asked, Mister Stark.” He comes behind the kid, settling both of his hands on each of those small shoulders. “Meet Peter Parker, your new ward for the foreseeable future.”

* * *

“So, you’re…”

“Peter Benjamin Parker.”

“Right. And you’re…”

“Seven. Eight on August first.”

“Yuh-huh. And you’re in…”

“I’m going on third grade this year.”

“Jesus,” Tony turns sharply to Fury. “Are you insane? Do I look like I’m fit to take care of a six-year-old―”

“I’m seven.”

“Zip it, the adults are talking. I mean, look at me, Nick.” He gestures down at himself. “It’s three in the afternoon―”

“It’s one thirty-one, Sir.”

“Thank you, J.A.R.V.I.S.―one thirty-one in the afternoon, and I’m still wearing the same bathrobe I went to sleep in last night. I barely keep a schedule of my own, and you somehow expect me to take care of another human being?”

“Sir does make a good point, Direct Fury,” J.A.R.V.I.S. dutifully chimes in. “Self-care is only in Sir’s vocabulary when it’s convenient or forced down his throat by Pepper Potts or Colonel Rhodes.”

“That’s enough help from you, J.A.R.V.I.S.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “My point still stands. I don’t have time for myself, much less a kid. The answer is no, Nick.” He glances briefly at the kid. “Sorry, kid.”

Fury regards him silently. A dozen seconds pass before he gently nudges at the kid’s shoulder. “Keep going straight through there. The kitchen is to the left; eat something.”

The kid looks between the two adults, staring hesitantly at Tony.

Tony can’t stand that forlorn look. “Make yourself at home, kid. J.A.R.V.I.S. will direct you to what you can eat.”

The kid stares at Tony for a moment longer then ducks his head. “Thank you, Mister Stark,” he says quietly. His small footfalls echo down the hall.

Neither Fury nor Tony watch him go.

“He’s a good kid, Tony,” Fury says into the silence. “And life hasn’t been kind to that little boy.” He sweeps his hand out to the sofa; it’s not a gesture of an offer.

Tony stays standing on his spot. He isn’t going to be dictated around by Nick Fury of all people in his own home. “Everyone has a sob story, Nick,” he counters, “and I’m not fit to be any sort of adult figure for a normal kid, much less for a kid with a less-than-stellar life.”

Fury breathes deeply, gaze veering off to the side. “I know,” he acknowledges quietly. “I’m calling in a favour.”

Tony frowns, something unsettled stirring in the pit of his stomach. “Why? Why is he so special?”

Fury’s mien darkens. “For one, his parents were two good agents of mine, and they were just murdered in their family home, along with every other surviving relative.”

A knife stabs into Tony’s chest. “God, what the hell?” He peers after where the kid had run off to, sharply recalling the gash on the kid’s forehead. “Tell me he wasn’t there.”

“He wasn’t,” Fury admits. “He was at school fending off bullies. Real standup kid, that one.”

“Sure,” Tony agrees absently, thoughts a thousand miles elsewhere, “another Steve Rogers in the making.”

“And that’s my other point.” Fury snaps his fingers. “Stark, eyes down here.”

Tony startles. He scowls. “Don’t patronize me.”

“The kid is enhanced.”

“The kid is― _what?”_

“Enhanced. He climbs walls.”

“He climbs―” Tony’s scowl depends. “You’re shitting me, right? ‘He climbs walls.’ That’s what you’re going with?”

Fury shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s the truth.”

Tony desperately rubs the heel of his palm into his eye socket. He can already feel the migraine brewing. “You brought me an orphan who likes to uphold the morals of Captain America in his freetime and can―he climbs walls. He seriously climbs walls? What, is his superpower souped-up sticky fingers?”

“Something like that.”

“Something like that,” Tony reiterates, nonplussed.

“It’s classified.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “You’re just full of shit, you know that, Nick? Okay, fess up: Why is he really here? You’re not fooling me into thinking you couldn’t have found someone to take in an enhanced kid at the drop of a hat.”

“Because you’re the only man in this country with a souped-up Guardian Angel, Tony. And everyone and their mother knows what that Guardian Angel of yours will do to anyone that so much as flicks a lock of your hair.”

“I’m an unwilling subject.” He huffs. “He’s more of a long-time stalker that occasionally gets me out of trouble.”

“He found you within three weeks of you being kidnapped in Afghanistan,” Fury counters, entirely unimpressed. “The military couldn’t do that even without their thumbs up their asses.”

“And you want me to, what, ask him to pretty please with a cherry on top take on the protection of another human body?” He throws his hands in the air, frustration eating at him. “Seventy percent of the time, I don’t even know where he skedaddles off to! He only randomly pops in every now again to give me muffins or whatever.”

Fury’s eyebrow twitches. “Muffins,” he says flatly.

“Don’t be jealous, Nick,” Tony retorts. “It’s not a good look on you.”

“Um,” comes a small voice, “Mister Stark, sir? Where’s your bathroom?”

Tony turns sharply towards the voice. He honestly forgot the kid is even in the house. _And Nick Fury wants me to babysit him._ “Same way you came, first door on the right,” he points.

“Um,” the kid stutters, “thank you.” And off again he goes.

Tony turns towards Fury. “I forgot he was here,” he informs the other man succinctly.

Fury stares at him intently. Tony gets the feeling he is being mentally judged very heavily. Without another word, he gets up, fixing the fit of his trench coat. 

He pats Tony’s shoulder as he passes by. “The kid dies, you’ll be answering to me, Stark. I’ll have Hill send the adoption files later. Make sure the kid has dinner before he goes to sleep, and, oh―” He turns to point a heavy finger in Tony’s direction. “If I hear a word about this on the news, Stark, I don’t care how much your Guardian Angel will try to avenge you. I have my eye on you,” he threatens, showcasing his words with the menacing look of his sole eye.

“Wait,” Tony startles suddenly, the words finally sinking in, “did you just say _adoption―”_

Nick Fury disappears off into the rest of the world.

The bastard.


	3. Undisclosed Location ― June, 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Everything has its consequence..._

Steve stares holes into his back. He’s leaning against one of his work tables, arms folded over his chest in an extra effort to show disapproval.

Bucky ignores him. He flicks down on the slide release, presses the trigger. The slide comes off. He inspects with a close eye last night’s handiwork. With satisfaction, he replaces the slide with some easy flicks, checks the mechanism once he’s done.

“They gave the kid to Stark,” Steve announces into the growing silence. “Fury wanted me to let you know, in case Stark ignores him again.”

Bucky snorts softly. That sounds like Tony, all right.

The humor extinguishes faster than it came, replaced instead by a dark tension. “Who’s the kid?” he asks tightly. He’s one word away from snapping―the mention of Fury in his charge’s vicinity is a gnawing wound, one that has had little time to scab over. _No wonder he sends a messenger he knows I won’t maim in his stead._

He sets down the handgun with overly careful movements and turns around. He folds his arms across his own chest, purposefully imitating Steve’s posture. Two can play at this game.

“You remember the Parkers?”

How could Bucky forget? Mary makes a mean blueberry pie. He’d hoarded an entire half of that pie and delivered it to Tony―he hasn’t seen delight like that on Tony’s face since.

“They―” Steve looks off to the side, his expression shuttered. He drops his arms as if an unholy weight has settled on his shoulders. “Someone murdered them,” he whispers into the air, a deadly sin spelled forth, “and then set their house on fire to try to destroy the evidence. There’s not much to go on, but...I know it’s him.” Steve’s steel-blue eyes settle on him, piercing in their intensity. “Buck, I _know_ it was him.”

The servos of his arm whine as he clenches his hand beyond the safety measures. “Where does the kid fit into all of this?”

“He’s enhanced,” Steve confesses. “He’s strong, as strong as you or I are. And he can do things no one else can.”

The implications of all of this―the concealed murder of two government agents, an enhanced child, _Hydra._ Nausea threatens to swallow him whole. “Steve,” he says tightly. The edge of the table creaks dangerously under his hand. “I swear to god, if I gave a pie to Tony from a woman who would experiment on her own kid―”

“There’s no evidence of that,” Steve is quick to assure but leaves the _not yet_ hanging obviously in the air.

Bucky stalks forth with menacing intent. His nose is but a few centimeters from that hauntingly familiar face. “ _Find it_ , then,” he threatens lowly, his eyes burning with sudden anger. Those steel blue eyes look coolly back at him. “I’m not placing Tony in danger’s way. Not again.”

“Buck, Afghanistan wasn’t―”

_“The hell it wasn’t!”_ Bucky explodes. He pivots on his heel, his other leg swinging with the momentum. The work table flips on its end and slams with a thunderous clunk against the wall. His tools, his guns, his knives, everything on top, lies squished between the wall and the table in a heap of metal and other odd bits. He breathes in heaves. The anger quivers through his muscles. 

The sudden quiet is deafening.

“I should have _been there,”_ he hisses under his breath. His fists twitch restlessly, curling and uncurling. “Instead,” he accuses over his shoulder, “I was running missions with the fucking Avengers. And a good man suffered for it. He’s _still_ suffering for it.”

He drags his hands down his face in despair. “Most days, he can’t even get out of his own fucking bed.” He swivels to settle his condemning gaze on the other man. “What was the first thing I told you, Steve?”

Steve stands with a careful stance. Guilt wars on his expression. He doesn’t answer the rhetorical question.

_He’s afraid,_ Bucky thinks to himself; he sees it in what Steve doesn’t say with his body. _As he should be. This is what I am: a monster in human's flesh._ “Answer me!” he demands.

Steve doesn’t startle. He never does. “Tony overrides the Avengers,” he repeats the words spoken so long ago. “Your first responsibility.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says flatly, “and guess where that left him.”

Steve’s shoulders slump. The whole world knows how that story goes. “You were brainwashed,” he returns softly, trying a different tactic. Afghanistan is a deep wound that stretches several decades. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for something you couldn’t stop―and, all these years, you’ve more than made up for it. You know Stark would agree with me, Buck.”

Bucky scoffs. “Steve, he forgave _Whitney Frost_ for nearly murdering him―he was in the hospital for three months healing from six bullet wounds that should’ve killed him.” He snaps his fingers. “That’s how fast he was over it.”

Steve stares incredulously at him. “That’s…”

“I know,” Bucky acknowledges quietly; he’s never managed to curb that particular habit from Tony. “Even if Tony is stupid enough to forgive the murderer of his parents…Those things done under Hydra’s name, it was still my hands that did them. I’ve killed hundreds, Steve. I’ve tortured innocents. I left a seventeen-year-old an orphan. No amount of time or penance will ever make up what I’ve done to all of those people, to Tony.”

“Maybe it’s not stupidity that allowed Tony to forgive you,” Steve allows after a moment of thought. It sounds as if he’s reaching for straws to try to comfort Bucky. “He has a good heart.”

Bucky raises a sardonic eyebrow. “And now you’re singing his praises? I thought he was a ‘selfish brat who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.’” He’s quoting Steve, word for word. He remembers that day with an icy clarity―Fury had threatened to take him down with charges of misconduct for punching his superior in the face.

If it hadn’t been for Tony suddenly jumping in the middle, he would’ve ripped Steve a new one, consequences be damned. _“Stop plummeting people in my goddamned name, Barnes; there is literally no virtue you’re protecting,”_ Tony had told him, hand pressed against his heaving chest. _“Now go apologize to your grandpa BFF before I make you take out the trash for a fucking month―don’t think I won’t.”_

He still made Bucky take out the trash every day for a week as “punishment.” The trash only gets taken out once a week. And Bucky doesn’t even live in Malibu.

“Stark isn’t…all bad,” Steve hedges.

“Real convincing, Rogers.” Bucky crosses his arms. “Tell Fury I’m off the roster.”

_“What?”_ Steve startles. “Bucky―”

“This was the last goddamned straw, Steve!” he bellows, the last of his composure snapping. “Fury brought a kid with a trail of death and fire after him into the home of _the one person―the one person I owe fifty fucking lifetimes to!―_ For fuck’s sake, how many times have I warned Fury to _stay away_ from Tony?”

Steve opens his mouth―

“Don’t fucking answer that, punk.” He stalks forward and is somewhat gratified when Steve takes a couple steps back until his thighs hit the edge of the other work table. He snatches the backpack behind Steve’s back and swings its single strap over his shoulder. He takes the closest Glock, checks the magazine, and slides it into the holster strapped around his thigh, following that up with several knives concealed in various parts around his body. “Tell Fury I’ll keep the boy safe,” he says as he settles a hat low over his eyes. “No kid deserves the hand he’s been given.”

“Bucky―” Steve tries to interrupt, something desperate in his tone.

“And you tell that sonuvabitch,” he growls, turning sharply to face the other man, “that he just lost himself one of his precious Avengers. If Tony gets so much as a scratch from this, I’ll be coming for Fury’s ass.”

Steve catches his wrist as he turns to leave. “We’ll keep him safe,” he promises in a heated tone tinged with desperation. “Him and the kid. It won’t be like last time, Buck. Don’t quit the team; we need you more than ever, especially with Thor still off-world. I just need your trust on this.”

Bucky huffs. “It’s not you I don’t trust, punk.” He twists away from the grip. He points at the mess across the room as he heads for the fire escape outside the window. “If I come back and I find you’ve stressed cleaned that, we’re gonna have words, Rogers!”

Steve huffs a half-empty laugh. “No promises.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! Wow, another update! (And so soon! I know; it's practically unheard of from me haha...Yeah, I suck).
> 
> Lots of Peter Feels and Tony taking his first steps as Iron Dad next chapter! :D
> 
> (Can you feel the UST yet? 👀)


	4. Malibu ― June, 2009

The resonant purr of the motor cuts off abruptly as Bucky dismounts the Harley. He kicks down the stand in the same motion as he disengages his helmet.

He heaves in a heavy breath as the frigid air of the garage hits his face. The humidity within the helmet had almost been stifling, especially during the unusually warm night. He’ll have to clean out the helmet later to get rid of the musty, old scent of sweat that is sure to settle.

J.A.R.V.I.S. doesn’t greet him as he makes his way through the lab and towards the staircase. Unless he speaks, the A.I. will continue to cloud the Soldier’s presence within the mansion―mainly for the safety of his charge but also, sometimes, because of guilty pleasure. He enjoys seeing the raw delight on Tony’s face when he makes his sudden presence known―and the way Colonel Rhodes jumps a mile in the air every time he sneaks up behind them.

This isn’t a social visit.

He rounds the water feature―if it could be called that; the monstrosity that is being displayed as “art” is nothing more than some twisted pieces of scrap metal glued together at odd angles―and comes to an abrupt stop. Tony and what he guesses could only be the Parker kid are on the couch.

There’s something disproportionately strange about seeing a man who prides himself being tougher than steel running careful fingers through a child’s hair, Bucky observes to himself. Tony is affectionate to a point, but anything that could be considered too “touchy-feely” is pursued briefly and with too much shame to pink cheeks.

The picture rights itself when he sees the small hitches to even smaller shoulders―the only exception the Stark Rule, so far that Bucky has found, is to comfort others in need. They’re near silent sobs―probably why he didn’t hear them over the gentle trickle of the water fountain―almost as if the boy has exhausted all emotional capacity. There’s misery in every line of that young face, from the splotchy red of his wet cheeks to the trembling downturn of his lips. 

No child should ever look like that.

Bucky recalls the argument he had with Steve in the afternoon. The seething anger. The desperate panic threatening to overtake his limbs. It’s one thing hearing that someone’s family was murdered in cold blood―it’s something entirely different to be made to bear witness to the consequences of such an atrocity: a child suddenly finding himself with no mother, no father, and no home and nothing but a stranger to offer him dull comfort.

“Can’t I go home?” the kid mumbles, his words mushing together almost indiscernibly. “I wan’ my mommy.”

His heart wrenches within his chest. _“I want my mom back, you fucker!” Tony snarled, his fists pounding uselessly against Bucky’s chest. “Give her back!”_

He had no words to offer then, no way to soothe the hurt. The memory paralyzes him into a standstill.

Tony shushes the kid gently. He wipes at those splotchy cheeks, doesn’t offer any false consolations. “I know,” he says, and a note in his voice tells Bucky this isn’t the first time he has said this, though it seems no less sincere. “I’m sorry, Peter.”

_Peter._ Bucky catches the name almost desperately―and almost in that same moment catches Tony’s eyes.

There’s no surprise on the other man’s face. His brows are furrowed, his jaw clenched tight. Bucky is all too familiar with those emotions.

_I can leave,_ he mouths.

_Stay,_ Tony mouths back. _Please._

* * *

It’s late enough into the night to be considered morning. The sky has gained that gray tinge that is signaling the approach of the sun. In a couple of hours, it’ll start into a glorious, Malibu sunrise.

The kid―Peter―had crumbled sideways into Tony’s lap, hunched into a tiny ball of misery. They’d gone through the whole grief cycle a couple of times before the kid wore himself and, by extension, Tony out. The coming dawn will signal the way the day will go. Bucky has a feeling he’ll have to interfere while Tony crashes in his own room―the latter hasn’t said a word, but Bucky can tell Tony reached his limit, both physically and emotionally, several hours ago.

He’s on his way to crashing: Tony has spent the past hour staring at the ceiling. His eyelids will flicker close every few moments, letting slip an occasional, stray tear. Bucky has made no mention of them, any more than Tony has mentioned Bucky’s persistent distance while the kid had been conscious.

Bucky stands before the tall windows, scanning the beach below and the ocean beyond for unusual stragglers. “You all right?” he asks into the dark silence. His question feels inadequate in light of the night’s events, but the vague, verbal comfort is as far as his mind can extend.

Tony’s brows furrow into a pained grimace. “I don’t think I can do this,” he confesses quietly.

Bucky sees an easy solution to that. “Then don’t.” There are more qualified people to care for Peter, experienced people who know how to care for a kid with unique abilities and who could just as easily protect him. Fury could have brought the kid elsewhere _―should have_ brought the kid somewhere else―but decided, of all places, to put the kid where Bucky can’t pass on as someone else’s job.

It’s exactly the kind of manipulative bullshit Bucky both admires and hates about Nick Fury. Right now, however, with Tony’s pale, weary, and drawn expression and the distant echoes of Peter’s cries burned into his mind, he’s leaning towards very strong _hate._

“It’s not that easy.” There’s more of a bite in the sentence than Bucky expects. Tony scrubs a hand across his temple. “Sorry, shouldn’t snap at you.” He sighs haggardly, finally allowing his neck muscles to relax into the couch cushions. “How was your mission?”

Bucky turns to lean a shoulder against the window. He stares off into the middle distance, not quite willing to meet judgement. “Didn’t go,” he reports succinctly. “I quit the team.”

Tony snaps to attention at that. “What?” he exclaims, then quieter when the kid moves restlessly, “What the hell do you mean you quit?”

Bucky looks down at Tony, in a clear _Do I really need to explain?_

Tony huffs as he settles back down. “Well, that’s sure to have pissed off Rogers,” he mutters under his breath, low enough that Bucky thinks he wasn’t supposed to hear.

A strange silence passes between, where neither of them knows what to say. _My condolences?_ or _Good for you?_ where just as equally lacking enough to incite an argument. Tony has always supported Bucky’s decision to join the team, even as he becomes more withdrawn into himself the longer Bucky stays away. Though he is the public benefactor and official consultant to the Avengers, Tony has always had a strained relationship with Steve and some of the others It’s a complicated back-and-forth that Bucky doesn’t quite know from where it emanates or whether it would eventually blow up in their faces as some things have done in the past.

_Not that it matters now,_ Bucky contemplates to himself. _I’m done._

Then, out of the blue, “You staying here, then?” Tony says it so nonchalantly it’s almost as if―

“You want me to?” Bucky frowns, a nameless emotion swirling in the pit of his stomach.

Tony offers him a sardonic smile. “You’re the one with experience with this whole…” He waves an encompassing hand. It’s enough of an explanation. “It’ll be like old times. I’ll even cook breakfast.”

Bucky snorts in amusement, smiling faintly. “When have you ever cooked anything edible in your life?”

It’s about as much of an enthusiastic _yes_ if Bucky had uttered the words out loud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wee-bit short, but I hope you guys still enjoyed it :) Until next time!


	5. Airspace over Idaho ― 48 Hours Since Bucky’s Departure

Clint groans as he kicks back on one of the conference room’s chairs. His boots rattle the table top’s surface as he stretches his body out, arms crossed behind his head. “I can’t believe the shithead actually _left_ us,” he complains to the ceiling. “What does Stark have that we don’t?”

Natasha snorts inelegantly. “Do you want that list chronologically or alphabetically?” She leans back into her seat and crosses her arms over her chest. “Besides,” she continues with a purposefully pointed edge, “I’ve been waiting for the straw that finally broke the Bucky’s back ever since Afghanistan.”

Natasha had known there wouldn’t be good news when Nick Fury himself greeted them as they were boarding off the quinjet from their last mission, an eleven-days “vacation” to the Savage Lands over rumours of illegal Antarctic vibranium mining that had fruited nothing more than a too in-depth acquaintance with the native life. The annoyance of having to scrub off more than a week’s worth of muck and bits of prehistoric insects―and she thought Ecuadorian mosquitoes were bad―had only soured her mood when Fury announced they had a _situation._

_“What the hell could be so urgent, Fury,” she had snapped. “We just got back from a hellhole two seconds ago.”_

_“And that was two seconds I don’t have time to spare,” Fury snarled back, “_ Agent _Romanov.” His lone eye had pierced across the haggard mess that called themselves the Avengers. “Stark’s convoy was attacked forty-three minutes ago.”_

_A pin-drop silence had followed._

_And then, in a thundering of movement, the Winter Soldier slammed Nick Fury against the metal wall of the helicarrier with a resounding_ thunk. 

_“Say that again,” the Soldier breathed a few inches away from Fury’s scowling mien. “Say that again to my face, Fury.” The last traces of Bucky Barnes had been erased, leaving behind a cold and collected wrath the face of which hadn’t seen Natasha’s nightmares since many decades past._

_No one moved to interfere. The few outside agents witnessing the scene had frozen in mute shock, their hands hovering over concealed weaponry. No one wanted to shoot an Avenger, especially if that Avenger happened to be the Winter Soldier caught in a Hulk’s rage._

_Clint automatically stretched his arm out in a clear_ stop _signal when one of the agents became a little too twitchy._

_The seconds stretched into a tense suspense._

_“Every moment we spend wiping our asses here,” Fury eventually replied, his even tone betrayed by the way his palm was braced against the handle of his gun, “is another moment Tony spends in the hands of the people that took him.”_

_The Soldier’s silver gaze had hardened then, a glimpse of Bucky slipping through. “Get in my way,” he threatened in his native tongue, the Russian rolling acerbic and biting, “and I’ll move through you.”_

_“Then I suggest you get your hands off me, Soldier, so we can get this parade on the move.” He tugged on his trench coat with an irritated huff the moment Bucky released him. “Rhodes is still on site. I’ve already gathered a team of my best agents to search the immediate area. They’ll be landing in T-minus seventy minutes, so I suggest you and your teammates restock and head out. A quinjet is waiting for all of you in Hangar J. Find Stark,” he said, with more emotion than Natasha would have ever expected, “and bring him home.”_

_And they had tried. For two weeks, they had searched the fifty mile radius from the point of attack for any clues, down to the last grain of sand. The military had withdrawn the week prior, stating other emergencies, and the back-to-back days of grueling work had been sucking the life out of them the second they had crash-landed on the Savage Land, before the whole shitstorm had even begun._

_Eventually, seventeen days since Stark had gone missing, Steve had to call it. “We need to pull back and regroup, try to see what―”_

_It was the exact wrong thing to say._

_Ever since Bucky had broken his programming in the early nineties, he had dedicated his very existence into righting the wrongs he had been forced to do. The Avengers had always been a part of it―saving people, protecting others, instead of being a force for subterfuge and schemes for world domination. But protecting_ Tony, _the sole survivor of the era of the Winter Soldier? Natasha knew that any hurt unto the man was more than a failure: to Bucky’s every particle of being, it was the rendition of the monster he feared inside of himself. That he was no more than what Hydra had made him, the ruthless murderer that never flinched even in the cry of a child._

_Natasha saw more of herself in Bucky than she ever wanted to._

_Bucky had stormed out before Steve could even finish the last of his faltering sentence. Without a trace, he had disappeared into the desert night._

_“Why aren’t we going after him?” Clint demanded the next morning upon learning the new development. “The idiot will show up missing two arms instead of one or,_ worse, _in a body bag!”_

_“Clint,” Natasha cut in before he could start down a whole rant, “out of all of us here, Bucky has the best chance of surviving out there. He’ll be back.”_

_And he was._

_Nine days later, Bucky had made his way back―with a half-dead Stark strapped to his back like a gangly sack of potatoes._

But the seed of distrust had been planted. Them trying to pull back, even if it had been for all of a day’s breath, had been a slap of betrayal in Bucky’s eyes. And when Bucky had returned with Stark, almost as badly off as the latter, guilt and inadequacy had seeped into the rest of the team. It was a bitter pill to swallow that their first failed mission had let down one of their own.

To make matters worse, the one time they had managed to gather enough wherewithal _―enough of a spine,_ as Bucky had rightfully accused―to visit Stark, the sight of seeing the man struggling to breathe through the fluid in his lungs in his hospital bed, let alone the horror of the raw wounds around the alien implant in his chest, had brought back all the bad blood they had let spew between them and Stark. All the words of undeserved vitriol and willful exclusion against the man who had opened far more than just his checkbook and wealth of expertise had clogged them up.

And so, here they are months later still twiddling their thumbs. Word of Stark’s slow recovery has either come from Bruce’s occasional visits to Stark’s home or through word of mouth from Bucky, whenever a mission arose. The few interactions they’ve actually had, during debriefings and updates about their gear after Stark became well enough to start traveling again, had been more strained than usual. 

Natasha could see Stark closing himself off more and more each time, slowly pulling back despite his misguided attempts at pushing Bucky towards them. _There’s a shawarma place on 93rd that Happy once made me try,_ he’d said the last time, right as he was turning to leave. _You know the one, Winter Wonder. Take the rest of the team up there, my treat. I’ll see you around. I think._

There were ten pages of psychoanalysis Natasha could have done on the _I think_ alone. It was blatant, and it was obvious, and it is driving Natasha up the wall. The level of professionalism that Fury had finally started to beat into them― _the man doesn’t have to and yet here he is, so at least_ act _like you can stand the sight of his three-piece Tom Ford_ ―had all but crumpled in the wake of Afghanistan like a piece of rebar in the Hulk’s fist. 

You’d think, Natasha ponders to herself, that after all those years of working alongside Stark, of getting to know him both through Bucky and one-on-one since even before the dawn of the Avengers, that they’d be past the awkward hallway _hello_ s and the _wam-bam-thank-you-ma’am_ s that every gear update brought, much more past the _arrogant rich kid who thinks he can do whatever he pleases because his daddy built the boat_ and the thousand-and-one ego remarks. 

_Thor,_ she scoffs, _would be ashamed of us._ The demigod had made it no secret what he thought of the team’s disregard for Stark’s aid, always jumping to follow Bruce and Stark’s ventures into the city.

She meets Clint’s eye across the table. The corner of his lip twitches sardonically. _What to do?_

Natasha hitches her shoulder. _It doesn’t have to be this way,_ she sends back.

Bruce eyes the room hesitantly. “I know I’m not as… _around_ as the rest of you guys, and I’m not an expert on either Tony or Bucky myself, but―Afghanistan, what happened out there, the fact that we still don’t know who, if anyone, was behind it…and now this thing with Hydra and the kid? Even disregarding the history between Tony and Bucky, it’d be hard on anyone.”

Clint rolls his eyes skyward with a huff. “So, what, you’re saying we had this coming? We just, what, accept that he gets to leave, fuck us all?”

“Stop being a child, Clint,” Natasha snaps, decidedly tired of it all. “You _know_ how Bucky is about Stark. We dropped the fucking ball on it, and then hit the dog while it was down when none of us could even manage a _get well soon_ card, as pathetic as that would have been. The only thing I’m surprised about is that he didn’t leave _sooner.”_

A tense silence follows.

Sam steps away from the wall, sliding into a seat. “I think this is the wake up call that we needed. Maybe some of us have some base for the way we’ve treated Stark,” he says, making brief eye contact with Wanda before her gaze jerks away, “and some of us tend to butt heads with the guy. But for all that we’ve complained and bemoaned about him, is the dude _actually_ that bad?” He pauses briefly, letting that thought settle.

“No,” Steve begins quietly, “he really isn’t.” He peers around, looking individually at the awkward conglomeration of misfits settled at various points of the room. “We’re not just a team. We’re a family. I know that―I know that we never had the best beginning with Stark, that many of us have turned a blind eye when we shouldn’t have or have let past biases or experiences get in the way of getting to know a good man. Afghanistan or Bucky leaving shouldn’t have had to be wake up calls, but they were, and we can’t change that. But we can move forward, together. Let bygones be bygones. Apologize where we need to. Start anew.”

“Support each other,” Wanda continues with a smile, “and maybe learn to trust along the way.”

Clint snorts suddenly, as if a realization has just sprung upon him. “Wow, have we been played.”

Natasha levers him a glare. “Really, Barton?”

Clint flaps a dismissive hand in her general direction. “Does anyone think it’s particularly suspicious that, _A,_ Fury has always been the one barking at us about _professionalism_ and _respect_ and _yada-yada_ ? And that, _B,_ Bucky has been on Fury’s ass about keeping Stark away from Avengers’ business ever since Afghanistan? And, _C,_ that out of literally anywhere in the world, he personally put the kid at Stark’s doorstep? Anyone?”

Sam leans forward to rest his forearms over the table, his expression sarcastically serious. “If the man himself had to forcefully intervene, don’t think it says much good about our interpersonal skills. Just sayin’.”

“Even if Fury did,” Natasha argues, “it doesn’t matter. We need to show Bucky that we have his back on this―not just by respecting his decision for leaving but showing him that he’ll always still have the Avengers at his back. That Afghanistan won’t be a repeat. That we can help him keep both the little boy _and_ Stark safe.”

“So,” Clint concludes, ticking off each point with a finger, _“somehow_ make it up to Stark, show Bucky that we have his back just as much as we’d have Stark’s, and keep the Parker kid away from Hydra grabby hands. Should we add ‘catch a flying pig’ while we’re at it?”

Steve, Bruce, Sam, Wanda, Clint, and Natasha exchange dubious glances with each other.

“I think,” Bruce hesitantly offers, “I might have a solution for all three.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Dude,” Clint says as the quinjet lowers over the front lawn of Stark’s sprawling Malibu mansion, “worst. Idea. _Ever.”_

  
  



	6. Marching to Fury's Fife (For Once)

Tony’s eyes flutter awake. “Wuz goin’ on?” His gaze flickers around the room, settling eventually to the space on his left. “Where’s Peter?” he says, more alert at the obvious missing person.

Bucky’s weight indents into the couch cushions as he worms his arms under Tony’s weight. It’s a sign of how drained Tony must be that he doesn’t protest at being carted around. “Upstairs,” he replies succinctly. “Sleeping in a bed, like you should be.”

Tony’s head thumps against a metallic shoulder. He grimaces at the slight throb the hard surface incites. “I was fine on the couch,” he grumbles under his breath, though he settles deeper onto the other man’s chest.

Bucky doesn’t bother to deign that with a response.

* * *

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky snaps awake at the sound of the A.I.’s voice. His eyes dart to the bed on his left, where both the kid and Tony are sleeping soundly, if wound around each other like octopi battling for dominance. It’s weïrd but, oddly… _cute._ He thinks maybe his charges would have slept better in separate beds, but it’s easier to keep watch from one vantage point than have to divide his time in two. _Safe_ flickers through his mind as he observes the soft rise of steady breaths. Some of the tension wound through his shoulders eases at the sight.

He flicks two fingers in a come-hither gesture, and light suddenly sprouts on the surface of the coffee table. He double taps on the surveillance footage, expanding the image.

It takes all of a second for him to discern the distinctive slopes of the Avenjet steadily creeping closer into their airspace. 

His Ma would’ve tanned his hide at the number of expletives that immediately sprung to mind.

* * *

“You can’t just _quit,_ asshole,” Clint barks at him, punching him in the left shoulder. It’s a testament to his training that he doesn’t start clutching his hand and cursing at the world.

Bucky stares back at him flatly.

Steve holds up his hand pointedly in Clint’s direction. He turns to Bucky with a wry smile. “Sorry,” he says as the archer grumbles off to the side. “We just came down to say that we’re thinking of setting up base camp a couple of klicks away. Whatever you need―both of you―we’ll be here.”

“If that’s all right,” Bruce is quick to tack on. “With Tony.”

Bucky examines them for a beat. He crosses his arms over his chest, keeping his body solidly between the French doors and the expanse of Avengers slowly trickling out of the quinjet. He knows it shouldn’t, but having this many of his teammates―or, rather, _former_ teammates―too close to where Tony is sleeping is driving his guard up. A sensation all too like _distrust_ prickles over his skin.

The name-calling and snide remarks were one thing, but when the team had all but given up on finding Tony? Something chilled him down to his soul, where the winter of the Soldier still resides. He thought about what Steve would have done if it were him who had been kidnapped, irreparably injured, and tortured―has _proof_ of what Steve actually had done―and then compared that to what happened out in Afghanistan, when Steve and the rest of them seemed all too ready to throw in the towel.

He thinks about how none of them so much as managed a professional _hope you’ll do all right_ while Tony struggled to breathe through the gunky water in his lungs in his hospital bed. He thinks about how most of them took one look at the crusted blood and bruises and the deep swath of bandages around Tony’s chest and immediately turned tail.

He remembers how it was before. How it had so easily turned physical, especially between him and Steve or when one of the others went a step too far. He remembers feeling disgusted at the sheer ingratitude, at the expectations for more and _better,_ when it was clear from the start that Tony was only providing technical support because _Bucky_ wanted to be a part of something more. He remembers how Tony would draw away from him the longer Bucky stayed away on missions, how the corners of Tony’s eyes would tighten and his face would go carefully blank whenever one of the Avengers said something that cut him deep. He remembers how Tony would intervene even then, how Tony would tell him to _stop defending his nonexistent virtue_ and _at any rate, it’s not like they’re wrong―_ which, _Jesus,_ is perhaps more infuriating than the remarks themselves because he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, Tony _believes them._ A thrown punch hadn’t alleviated anything other than the ire burning through his veins.

And then he hears the broken gasp of Tony’s voice: _I knew you’d come for me._

The sheer audacity of Tony’s faith in him drives away even the last of the winter frost. It’s not enough to trust anyone on the team again―but he can offer to them what Tony had offered to him, all those years ago: a second chance.

The fact that at least one of them thought to ask for Tony’s permission is a step in the right direction.

He steps to the side. “Ask him yourself.”

* * *

Tony huffs angrily as his arm gets stuck in the sleeve of his bathrobe for the umpteenth time.

Bucky quietly adjusts it for him.

“Thanks,” Tony mutters as he finally has the unwieldy thing settled properly. It’s his father’s old bathrobe, and Tony doesn’t even know why he still has it. It’d probably go better in the donation box―along with all the other junk that he has yet to throw out. The reactor peeks through the slitted _v_ of the robe; he tugs the edges closer still until nothing but a faint glow and the round curve of the device are visible. His eyes flicker briefly to the reflection of the man standing at his back. “This is Fury’s game,” he informs succinctly.

Bucky raises a questioning eyebrow.

“Bringing the kid here, you leaving, them coming―it’s all full circle.” He turns around to face the one man who has been a constant in his life, right alongside his other handful of friends. “He wants you back.”

Those cerulean eyes settle heavily over him. “No,” Bucky replies quietly, “don’t think that’s what he wants. Fury has always had his eye on you.”

_I have my eye on you,_ comes unbidden to his mind. Tony shudders at the memory. “Yeah,” he counters wryly, “I don’t think me being a part of the team is what Fury dreams about in the lonely hours of the night. He just likes me for my toys.”

Bucky catches his wrist as he starts to walk past. “You’re more than just a _thing_ for people to use, Tony,” he says fiercely. His eyes are hard, his brows downturned.

Tony never knows what to say whenever Bucky looks at him like that. Never does manage to believe, for all the thousand times the other man has said those words. So he doesn’t reply―just lets his lips twist into a facsimile of a smile.

Bucky’s grip twitches around his wrist before he releases it, his gaze somehow unbearably devastated for a moment before he smoothes out his features into something more gentle. “Go downstairs, I’ll get you some breakfast.”

Tony smiles more genuinely then. “You my mother now?”

“No,” Bucky replies with a smirk, “just a concerned citizen.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Asshole. I eat fine, ask the other mother hen.”

Bucky laughs lightly. It does wonders for his resting murder face, Tony thinks half-dazedly. “Don’t think you’re gonna win that argument, doll.”

* * *

Tony takes one look at the gathered Avengers and immediately turns tail. “Nope,” he announces―and disappears around the corner.

“Well,” Sam says into the awkward silence, “that could’ve gone better.”

Bruce sighs haggardly. “I’ll be back.”

* * *

Bruce waves awkwardly from the foot of the kitchen doorway. “Hi.”

Tony is in the middle of breaking open a bread roll. A cloud of steam rises from the centre of the bun, all soft golden brown and delicious. There’s a mound of them sitting in the middle of the large kitchen island along with a half-empty tub of Philadelphia cream cheese. Tony glances at him briefly as he stuffs half of the bread into his mouth but scoots over on the bench all the same.

Bruce takes the proffered seat. “Sorry,” he begins, noting the obvious _just woke up_ signs despite it being past two in the afternoon, “did we come at a bad time?”

Tony snorts inelegantly. “I’m onto you, you know,” he accuses, though he hands Bruce one of the buns the latter has been eyeing all the same. “What changed your mind? I thought you were done with the lot.”

Bruce tears a small sliver and nibbles on it. It’s good, unsurprisingly. The smell alone was mouthwatering. “What they said, before we came here,” he confesses quietly after he swallows his bite. “I thought after―well, _after,_ they’d finally see what they were doing―that they were treating you like…” _Dirt,_ easily comes to mind. He doesn’t think Tony is ready to hear it. “And I guess they did see”―though certainly none of them had acted like it―“and it just took Bucky leaving to give them the final kick that they needed.”

Tony seems to ponder on this, eyes far away. His gaze is still into the middle distance when he asks, “What does that have to do with bringing them here?”

“A test,” Bruce shrugs, though he’s anything but nonchalant on this, “to see whether they’re just spewing out of their asses.”

But Tony doesn’t laugh at the imagery. He pieces apart the other half of the bun in his hand, peeling it layer by layer until it starts making a small mound on the edge of the table. “I know I made it clear,” he starts slowly, “when I joined up as a consultant that my services were contingent on Bucky being a part of the Avengers. If you need―”

“Jesus, Tony,” Bruce interrupts, horrified, _“no._ Okay? _No._ That’s not what this is. It’s not about Bucky getting back on the roster just because we want the tech upgrades or whatever else you think the team might want. It’s about making things _right._ I know I haven’t always stepped up when I should have, and you sometimes gave back as much as you were given―”

Tony’s hand on his wrist halts his rant. “Take a breath, big guy,” he calms, and Bruce doesn’t realize why until he notices the green tint bleeding over his skin.

Bruce huffs, clenching his hand into a fist. “Sorry,” he mutters, watching closely until there’s nothing but a dark tan left. “Just―it’s up to you, Tony. Whether you want the Avengers close enough to help with keeping the little boy safe or as far away as possible.”

A few seconds pass before a mischievous smile takes over Tony’s face. “A test, right?”

Bruce's eyes flicker across Tony’s face, trying to map where the sudden leap of logic is going. “…Right.”

Tony claps him brightly on the shoulder. “I could use a babysitter or seven.”

  
A laugh bursts out from Bruce. He _sees:_ a second chance, only in the eccentric way Tony can manage. “You’re a madman, Tony Stark.”


	7. Growing Olives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 2021, everyone! :D Hope this chapter makes up for the (unintentional) hiatus!

_This was never going to work,_ flits bitterly through Steve’s mind. Of all the looks Stark has given him, the dismissive way he took one look at the lot of them and turned tail has his stomach churning with knots. It’s unfair, he knows, after what could very well be hundreds of times that he has cut Stark short, believing the latter to be nothing more than an arrogant billionaire playing at superhero in his spare time. He has known it untrue too many years ago from the very first time Stark had shown concern over his work―not because of a cocky know-it-all attitude but because he was clearly afraid that what he made for each of the Avengers wasn’t good enough to keep them safe. And, for all that he used to believe Bucky had blinded himself with guilt―guilt Steve knows is undeserved―he knows Bucky would have never stuck true to Stark if the billionaire wasn’t a good man.

And yet. Why does Stark always rub him the wrong way?

Sure, the whole world knows the man used to be an insatiate playboy in his early twenties. The man also single-handedly shut off the entire weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries when he took the reins at the green age of twenty-one, back when Stark Industries was known solely as a weapons maker. He recalls reading the papers about that, the headlines that accused Stark of having a meltdown from the grief of losing both his parents. He remembers even more sharply the printed image of Stark standing tall and proud, staring pointedly at the cameras with a defiant gaze. Of Bucky at his back, strikingly dressed in all-black. 

Something dark had possessed him then―and it has taken all of these years to finally start peeling it back. A good man, after all, wouldn’t have taken his company and steered it to become the leading source of sustainable energy. He also wouldn’t have dumped the majority of profits towards prosthetics, innovative technology, and a myriad of educational programs, among a million and one other countless things that appear one week in the news only to be drowned out the next week with another announcement. He doesn’t think people like Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan and Mrs. Arbogast and every other person working at Stark Industries would be as achingly loyal to Stark and his company if there wasn’t _something_ about Stark that drew them in. 

Undeniably, Steve has been in the direct presence of that _something_ every time he sees the way Bucky smiles at Stark or the way Stark can make Natasha laugh with a witty quip or the way he can draw out the warmth out of Wanda’s standoffish persona. He sees it every time Stark glances his way, every time the man calls his judgement and doesn’t back down an ounce.

And yet.

He glances around the room, takes in the large sitting area and the strange sculpture by a gently trickling waterfall. There’s a dimmed gray light filtering in from the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sea beyond a misty gray, almost inseparable from the clouds shrouding every inch of the sky. The wind hasn’t picked up yet, but the turbulence of the sea is almost palpable. A storm is brewing.

“So much for Malibu paradise,” Natasha says at his shoulder.

He peers at her sideways in question.

“I worked for Stark for a while, before I joined up on the team,” she continues nonsensically. “I was tasked by Fury to find out who Stark’s mysterious bodyguard was.” A somber smile tugs at her lips. “I snuck in here in the middle of the night, and Bucky nearly stabbed me through the eye.”

“He what?” Sam exclaims, startled, from beside them.

Natasha slides her hand through her hair, pulling it back momentarily to expose her hairline. Steve gets a brief impression of a thin white scar that runs perpendicular to her eye. “Bye-bye ponytails.” She snorts inelegantly. “He knew who I was, and he didn’t care. That’s when I knew what Stark really means to Bucky.” Natasha turns to him then, something hard in her emerald gaze. “You don’t kill, you don’t lay down your very life, devote your very being for _guilt,_ Steve.”

He sees Sam’s eyes go round in startled understanding. “Oh, shit.”

_And yet,_ echoes through Steve’s mind. His brows furrow, looking from Natasha to Sam and back again. “What are you saying?”

Natasha’s eyes bore into him for a beat; he’s seen her give the same look to Clint too many times to count. “You’ll figure it out when you’re older, soldier.”

* * *

The minutes stretch into hours.

Clint groans long and loud, stretched out across the pristine white couch. Steve had snapped at him for taking liberties, but the archer had only given him an aggrieved look before he’d plopped unceremoniously on the cushions. “Why does this feel like our sentence is being debated behind closed doors?”

“Because it is?” Wanda remarks with a raised brow. “That is what we are here for. Without Barnes or Stark, the Avengers are not the same―it is already threatening to tear us apart.”

The declaration sparks a somber mood. They all know it to be true, and it is all the more apparent just how much they have to lose. For all that they were brought together by conflict, the Avengers have become the basic definition of a family of misfits, and their broken lines―their puzzle pieces that they had once thought fit seamlessly―are starting to erode, leaving in their wake the separation between the cracks of a canyon. 

To Sam, someone who breathed and understood grief and loss after his time as a pararescue, he can easily see that Stark had become the perfect scapegoat for all their woes and problems. After all, what better person to hate and blame than the man who seemed to lead the perfect life, even if in truth Stark’s life has been just as battered as any one of them? Pain and misery shouldn’t have ever become a dick measuring contest, but that’s what it became, and their actions had nearly cost them the life of two Avengers. 

It was time to right their wrongs. And if that meant Stark and Barnes leaving them behind, then that was the decision that the rest of the Avengers had to live with. 

Lightning crackles across the sky, and the rain starts pouring in torrents.

* * *

Some half an hour after the storm starts up, the doorbell rings.

“Agent Romanov, if you would catch the door?” the A.I. asks from some nebulous point in the ceiling.

Sam, Clint, and Wanda trade looks. Steve rises to accompany Natasha to the entrance.

Just under the terrace stands a soaked-through gangly man holding aloft two large, brown paper bags dotted with rain. “Uh,” the guy says awkwardly, looking between Natasha’s cold stare and Steve’s looming figure, “delivery for Mister Stark?”

Natasha doesn’t hesitate a second. “Thanks, I’ll take these to him. Robbie, right?”

“Uh,” the guy looks down at his vest, as if to verify on his nametag that he is, indeed, Robbie, “yes?”

She closes the door in his face and promptly thrusts the bags of food into Steve’s chest, who hurriedly tries to catch them. “I cannot _believe,_ ” she says hotly just under her breath, “that Stark gets delivery service from the _Hell Charger.”_

“Robbie is a good kid.”

The new voice has everyone straightening suddenly.

Bucky’s stormy gaze sweeps across them. “I’m surprised the lot of you have stayed this long.”

“You asked us to wait,” Steve counters, a defiant glint in his eye. “So, we’re waiting.” He hefts up one of the bags of food higher. “Food?”

Bucky cocks his head. “Dining room is this way.”

* * *

“Shouldn’t we wait for Tony?” Steve asks as he watches Bucky break open the bags and start packing out the containers filled with steaming food.

Bucky spares him a brief look out of the corner of his eye. It almost feels mistrustful, as if Bucky is doubting Steve’s consideration for Stark. “He said to start without him.”

“Can you ask him?” Clint interrupts, hands braced against the back of the tall chair. “To eat with us.” At Bucky’s considering look, he stretches his arms out, as if to gesture at the formal dining room and their lack of host. “Can’t eat the man out of house.”

Steve can practically hear Bucky’s thought as he takes in the masked hope in Clint’s face: _Never stopped you before._

They can’t start like this, Steve thinks desperately to himself. They can’t go back to the same conundrum, the same mistakes. “Please, Buck,” he pleads and hopes Bucky hears what he truly wants to say: _Let me make this right._

They stare at each other for a beat before Bucky breaks away from his gaze with a soft snort. “Can never say no when you stare at me with those cow eyes.”

Steve’s smile is small and brief, brimming with unsettled fears. “Guess I still have a trick or two up my sleeve.”

* * *

Stark is still in his bathrobe as Bucky ushers him in, Bruce trailing after them slowly. He’s greyfaced and shaky on his feet, settling heavily into a seat that Bucky pulls closely to his own. Looking at him―obviously ill and so far from the put together billionaire they used to know―Steve almost regrets asking Stark to come down and join them.

They wait for Bucky to place one of the containers in front of Stark before awkwardly digging into their own food.

In the moments that have passed, the food has gone lukewarm, but it feels impolite to ask to rewarm his chosen container of food when it’s his first time stepping into Stark’s Malibu mansion, without invitation no less.

Steve becomes increasingly uncomfortable when he notices that Stark has left his plate practically untouched.

Bucky nudges Stark’s elbow. “Eat,” he says, softly.

The tired smile Stark throws back at Bucky is achingly sweet, but he still only ends up pushing a couple pieces of tenderized meat around with his plastic fork before settling the utensil aside altogether.

Steve lowers his own fork in anticipation.

“So,” Stark begins, looking at each of them with familiarly guarded eyes, “this is sufficiently awkward.”

“Could be worse,” Natasha says with a small lilt of a smile.

Tony’s answering smile is weak and thin. He takes a visible breath, straightening out his shoulders in a poor attempt to try to summon whatever strength he has left. “There’s a rule about eating at the dinner table and business, but I’ve largely ignored it my entire adult life, so here’s the deal: I can’t take care of Peter alone. I…physically can’t.” 

Tony’s hands clench into fists; shame at his own weakness has him lowering his gaze, pretending as if they can’t see him if he can't see them. “It hasn’t been a week, and I already feel like ground shit.” Not that any of them have ever given a shit about his problems. How was it that Maximoff once put it? Right. _What right has a billionaire to be aggrieved?_

But bygones had to be left at bygones. Second chances and all that. 

“But I already have all the support I need,” he continues, sharing a smile with Bucky at his side, “and all the security I could possibly want.” He huffs a laugh. “I actually had a half-formed thought of hiring the Avengers as babysitters, but―There’s an olive branch somewhere, but the tree hasn’t grown yet―I mean, I’m a disaster half the time and an asshole the other half―How are you supposed to build bridges if your foundation sucks, right―”

_“_ Jesus, _stop.”_

The vehemence in those words grind his ramblings into a halt. His heart stutters into a gallop. He’s already fucked this up already, hasn’t he?

“We’ve treated you like _shit,_ man,” Clint asseverates. “I know I have. For no other reason than Steve doesn’t―didn’t―like you. It’s shit of me. And I never got the chance to set amends. What happened to you―it brought home what you’ve done for me, for all of us, even when I treated you like the scum under my shoe.” 

His words settle into the air like a thick, cloying veil. This is the ugly, spoken truth. 

“We’re supposed to be the Avengers. Uphold truth and justice, overcome all those pesky qualities that makes humans such fucking assholes. And we say and think that we do, but we don’t, especially to the people that matter. _You_ matter, Tony. And it shouldn’t have taken what happened to you for any of us to realize what we were missing, what we were destroying, every time we said those things that we did and did the things that we did. It’s not fair to you.”

Fuck, he wasn’t going to cry he wasn’t going to cry _he wasn’t―_ He wipes angrily at his cheeks. “This is fucking embarrassing. I’m not crying,” he denies, even as evidence to the contrary threatens to spill over.

Stark _―Tony―_ only stares at him. As if he can’t quite manage to believe. And that? That feels worse than being kicked in the balls.

He feels stupid for bawling. But that’s what they get, isn’t it? There’s no trust here. No fancy words will ever take back what was done. He hasn’t given Tony a single iota to believe him, and they’ve apparently entrenched the man so far in self-deprecation that he apparently feels solely to blame for the way they have treated him.

Tony seems to try to shake out of his stupor. “Sorry. I want to―believe what you’re saying. There’s just a...delay in the noggin somewhere. I think.”

His words only assert what Clint knew. “Not trying to make you feel bad, man. I’m not even looking for forgiveness. I just―want to take back every stupid-assed comment I ever said. Build a time machine and somehow redo everything. We could have been good friends if I’d only put my own shit aside. Stopped feeling jealous at how effortlessly everyone always fucking loves you.”

He kicks himself for his last words even as his mouth is saying it, sees the written hurt in the careful way Tony’s face goes blank. Exactly like every time in the past when Clint has said some other stupid comment. “Look, I can tell I’m already saying the wrong shit. I’m not good at―this.” He gestures loosely at the situation at hand. “I’ve never been good at this. I’d just―I only want to make it up to you. Somehow. Show you that I’m more than the ungrateful asshole on this team.”

“Clint isn’t the only one that needs to make amends,” Natasha begins. “I’ve wronged you. Broke your trust before it even began. You treat your employees with respect and care―they’re loyal to you for a reason―and I spat that in your face.” She’s using some of the words that Bucky had used all those years ago, and she sees him notice it. Mission or not, she had pretended at something more―more than just friendship―and it had brought a startlingly reminder of an egregious betrayal: Tony’s near murder from his crazed ex-girlfriend, after Obadiah Stane had fed her lies of adultery for the sole sake of having him permanently removed from the company. “And I continued to spit back your every kindness for the sake of masking my own hurt ego.”

Wanda’s lips twist into a poor facsimile of a smile. “And I have never been kind. Your company murdered my parents and my brother.” She breathes through her loss, the haunting memory of their crushed bodies, the starvation eating at her body. “But you were but a child then, same as I, and you have steered an industry built on blood into a force for good.”

Stark stares at her with tearful eyes. She can taste the hurt wafting off him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know how it feels to lose…” He trails off, eyes distant. “Sorry,” he says again.

“Then I must ask for your forgiveness as well,” she counters and tries again for a better smile.

Stark half mirrors her. He’s wan, pale. It’s obvious the conversation is dragging on him.

Sam looks from Clint to Natasha to Wanda in succession. He isn’t next in line in the circle, but he wants to say his piece before Steve jumps in with the big speech that he can feel brewing in waves beside him. “I’ve been complicit in letting this whole shitshow slide. I should’ve said something sooner, stepped up when things went too far. It ain’t a team if you can’t trust a guy to pass the salt without spitting on it first.” He takes care to look at Stark in the eyes, willing for him to understand. “I should’ve been better.”

“I should have, too.” Steve looks at his team, at the family he has come to know in this new century. “It’s my responsibility to lead by example. But all I’ve had to show for it is a broken team. I’ve hurt you,” he says, looking not just at Tony but at Bucky as well. “Both of you. I know I have. And I don’t have any excuses. There’s nothing I could say that can change what I have done.” He breathes deeply, tries to will the burning in his eyes away. Watches closely at the way Bucky sits so comfortably next to Tony, the easy way they carry themselves around each other―a friendship that has withstood even more turbulence than his own with Bucky. 

_And yet,_ echoes through his mind.

To his horror, a tear slips down Tony’s cheek, but he isn’t look at him. He’s looking at Bucky. “I hate it when you two fight,” he confesses with a quiet seething. “Especially when you fight over me.” He hates even more that he’s the reason that Bucky and Steve’s friendship has become increasingly strained over the years. It’s why he always gave as good as he got, why he drove Steve to almost punch him in the face at times. So that Bucky could see who truly was the asshole instead―that Tony has never been worth defending.

He looks at Steve then, at each of the Avengers sitting around his dining room table. “I don’t care what you think of me. I’ve spent my entire life ignoring what everyone thinks of me. And I don’t care if you’re all just spewing out of your asses because you want Bucky back on the team. Just― _stop._ Stop fighting over me.” He takes Bucky’s metal hand in his, squeezes it tight enough for the pressure to register. “Both of you. I’m not worth it.”

Bucky envelops his hand in both of his. His grip is so gentle, as if Tony’s hand were made of glass. “You’re worth everything, Tony. I told you then, and I’m telling you now: I’ll always protect you, even when you don’t want me to.”

The old promise brings renewed tears to his eyes. It aches somewhere deep in his heart. “Sap,” he accuses.

“Like honey,” Bucky agrees. He peers around the table, studies Clint unsubtly trying to wipe the tears off his splotchy face, admires Sam’s quiet determination, watches Natasha’s grim-faced reality, and calms at Wanda’s settled ire.

And then he turns to those damning cow eyes. The hope and desperation balanced on a cliff of resignation.

“I’m not like Tony,” he tells the room. “I don’t forget easy, and my disposition for forgiveness was carved out of me in the ice.” He feels the twitch of Tony’s hand in between his, the fear of uncertainty bridling his nerves. He squeezes ever so slightly in comfort. “But I’m willing to make an effort―on the one condition that you treat Tony with the respect he deserves.”

“Let me make it up to you,” Steve is quick to jump in. “I can help you look after the kid, help you keep everyone safe. Take over when either of you needs a break.” He’s desperate enough to almost say _please_ and beg on his knees. He wants to show Bucky that he can do better. That he does respect Tony for the man that he is. He wants to be able to properly thank Tony for everything he’s done for the team. He wants to lead the team by example, as he should have from the beginning.

He wants to know what makes Tony Stark so _special._

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! :D Until next time!


End file.
